1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of agricultural equipment, and more specifically, to an apparatus designed to cool the exhaust gas from an agricultural tractor prior to injection of the exhaust gas into the ground.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is well known that exhaust gas from vehicles contributes to global warming and is generally considered bad for the environment. One of the components of exhaust gas, including gas from agricultural tractors, is nitrogen. It is also a fact in today's current economic environment that a significant expense for many farmers is fertilizer. Farmers use nitrogen-bearing fertilizer to feed beneficial microorganisms in the soil, which in turn yields more productive crops. Both problems would be solved if there were a way to capture the exhaust gas from an agricultural tractor and inject it into the ground, thereby preventing the exhaust gas from entering the atmosphere (this is called “carbon sequestration”) and saving money for farmers by reducing or eliminating fertilizer expense at the same time.
One prior art apparatus (shown in FIG. 18) attempts to solve this problem by capturing the exhaust gas from an agricultural tractor, passing the gas through a grid of aluminum tubing, and then feeding the exhaust into the air seeder fan on the front end of the seeder cart. The air seeder fan then blows the exhaust gas into the seed tank. This particular apparatus is deficient because it intermingles the exhaust gas with the seed in the seed tank, which causes the seed and the tank to become dirty and wet. What would be preferable would be a design that segregated the seed from the exhaust gas until the seed and gas hit the ground.
There are a number of other prior art apparatuses that involve the capture and use of exhaust gas to stimulate crop growth, but none of these devices cools the exhaust gas in the same manner as the present invention. Cooling the exhaust gas is important to avoid melt-down of hoses and other parts. What distinguishes the present invention from other cooling methods is the design of the cooling chamber and the fact that ambient air is used to cool the exhaust gas but is never actually mixed with the exhaust gas.
Examples of prior art apparatuses that involve the capture and use of exhaust gas from an agricultural vehicle and the injection of that gas, in one form or another, into the ground for purposes of crop stimulation are U.S. Pat. No. 2,943,419 (Harris, Jr., 1960); U.S. Pat. No. 1,725,190 (Hicks, 1929); and U.S. Pat. No. 4,632,044 (Allen, 1986). Other prior art apparatuses deal generally with the utilization of exhaust gases (not necessarily from an agricultural vehicle) or explosive forces of the exhaust from a motor for purposes of soil fertilization and/or stimulation. Examples include U.S. Pat. No. 2,800,764 (Johnson, 1957); U.S. Pat. No. 1,717,911 (Brewer, 1929); U.S. Pat. No. 3,888,652 (Yie et al., 1975); U.S. Pat. No. 4,247,321 (Persinger, 1981); U.S. Pat. No. 4,297,123 (Wyse et al., 1981); and U.S. Patent Application Pub. No. 2006/0010947 (Lewis).
What is needed is an apparatus that captures the exhaust gas from an agricultural tractor, cools it without mixing the exhaust gas with anything other substance (e.g., ambient air or seed), and injects it into the ground. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus that performs this functionality via a cooling chamber that can be installed on any agricultural tractor and that can be used with either an air seeder or a cultivator. It is a further object of the present invention to allow the tractor operator to control both the temperature and the pressure of the exhaust gas to prevent hose melt-down and/or backflow of exhaust gas to the engine. Segregation of the exhaust gas from other substances allows the operator to maintain better control over the temperature and pressure of the exhaust gas.